waster

Seriously, though, it reminds me of the "house of the future" from one of those ubiquitous films they showed us in elementary school way back in the day.

Bravo to Stephen Fry for going public.

Sounds like a guy I'd like to know. Also loved the quote about him being like a college student with 60 years of experience.

Many people who don't use tech a lot (many teachers!) aren't really familiar with open source. They learn the big suites, because that's what they learned in school. It's a cycle.

On the optimistic side: MOOCs and the like may change things. Crafty, budget-conscious teachers who have a tech bent may change things (raspberry pi, anyone?). Clever startups may change things. I'm with Everlag: A billion dollars to the person to come up with something that helps them transition.

The way I see it, Brooks is an op-ed writer, and it's his job to come op with something to write. Criticizing something that most people would view as inherently good is a sure way to gain a lot of attention for your op-ed piece. Maybe he truly feels that way (negatively) about Trigg's actions; but IMHO it doesn't matter; he's a writer looking for an audience, and either way, he got it.

I have lurked for ages, and just finally created an account and haven't finished building it (i.e., linking it to anything else). I intend to, eventually, when I stop reading the ridiculously high number of excellent posts, and presumably when I've sated myself with commenting, although the latter could take a while.

But I also come from a number of worlds (multiple sectors, regional/national/international, etc.). I've coded for ages but am new to coding at the level I'm at now. I've worked at many levels within the groups I've been with. And the viewpoints of many of these don't all mesh in a way that makes me be sure I want to link my public personal with my comments here yet, until I see that the things I'm drawn to comment on actually matter to anyone other than my own self-centered drive to speak up.

Like others, I only post on FB, G+ and in other venues with the understanding that any post is, could be, or one day will be public, even if I have all my privacy settings set to private for now. HN is public, and that makes me want to put my toe in the water gradually. But I think I'll link it up all eventually anyway.

Not sure anyone has the answer, but that length of reading time vs. the presumed number of words to be read struck me as notable.

Ages ago, when I was at university, I spent a semester in a Soviet bloc country. There were no clubs other than the Party-run ones; few movies to go see, little to buy in stores, no TVs, no Internet, no cell phones. The isolation could have been profound. But for many people, what this meant was that human relationships became very, very intense and valuable. Friendships with my fellow students became so, as did friendships with other locals I met and got to know.

Upon returning to my home university in the US, I was very happy to see my friends, and quickly joined them on my first day back at one of our usual hangouts, a bar. I was appalled to realize that all the conversations I had had with them for all the nights we'd been going out were utterly superficial and meaningless compared with the relationships and conversations I'd experienced overseas. I gradually withdrew from my friends, trying to stick more to non-party/bar settings so we could have what I considered to be more real, deeper conversations; but I had changed, and they had not. It was very isolating.

I gradually discovered that a few of these friends also were craving deeper interaction (cue jokes, okay, okay) and those friends became not only the people I hung out with more, but the ones whose friendships with me lasted decades until today. But there was a seriously lonely stretch until I discovered that, and it was all about social intimacy -- not physical, not being among people, but sharing our true selves in conversation and companionship.

<edit: fixed a minor typo.>